I Disappear
by planet p
Summary: AU; random fic!


Emily swallowed a weary sigh, vaguely smiling at the thought of dinner – take-out and a glass of cheap wine, alone – as she headed down the escalator for the subway platform. As sad as she was to be going home to an empty apartment, she was tired and just glad to be on her way back home. She was doing good, had kept the same hideout for three years now, the same falsified identity, had managed to keep out of the clutches of her brother's criminally insane pursuers. She loved her job, despite how tough it was, and though she didn't see her family as much as she'd have liked, they kept in regular contact. It was as close to "normal" as her life had ever been. Life was good, almost comfortable. She never stayed up at night, lying alone in the dark and going out of her mind, worrying if it would be safe to close her eyes and catch a little sleep. She slept fine, nowadays. Her dreams were sometimes pleasant, happy.

As she stepped off the escalator, she was practically grinning. The people around her were harassed, unhappy, but she was excited. She almost wanted to giggle, she was so happy. Jarod had promised to call her tonight and it had been four months. She wasn't anxious or nervous, as she might have been in her younger years, but she had missed just talking with her family, had missed being part of a family.

The platform wasn't the warmest of places but she didn't have long to wait. The train arrived a couple of minutes later and she smiled. Finding an empty seat, she sat down and finally allowed herself to sigh, releasing some of the long-held tension from her body with her breath and closed her eyes.

The radio was playing in the carriage and Emily found she wasn't terribly eager for the tunes to be over so she could hear the news. Tonight, she could wait to hear the bad news. She wouldn't go searching for it.

She opened her eyes and took a curious, leisurely look around the carriage, unselfconscious enough to meet a couple of eyes that didn't linger when she offered a friendly smile. "Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart" was playing and hard as she tried, Emily couldn't help but smile. The man across the aisle, reading a file of some form, hummed along absently. Not unusual, but something about the scene made her pause and look again, a little more closely. The man seemed normal enough – a little cute, maybe – he was wearing a pair of normal-enough glasses which she guessed could have been for reading specifically. She was contemplating a frown when the light shifted and she felt her heart freeze. The innocuous olive-coloured folder sported a sinister cross impressed into the cardboard, a cross the type of which Tower Sweepers wore pinned to their suits, the type of which was the Centre's logo.

The man returned his reading glasses to his jacket pocket with a sigh and closed the folder. Emily's heart thudded horribly and she felt dizzy. She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed him right off, couldn't believe she'd gotten so lax. She rushed to avert her eyes, to drop them to her lap, hoping against hope that he didn't recognise her also, but she wasn't quick enough and he caught her gaze. For just a second, he didn't seem to know her, and the crazy feeling of drowning threatened to overwhelm Emily at the sight of his blue, blue eyes, but the moment passed and he frowned.

"Oh, come on!" he muttered. He sighed heavily, with some disappointment. "Hey, girl, what's your name?"

Emily could barely recall what he'd asked over the mad beating over her heart, the crazy way her thoughts were racing. She didn't think for a second that he had any doubts as to who she was; he was just playing a game with her, the way he liked to do to everyone. Nonetheless, the lie was out of her mouth before she could call it back. "Hannah," she replied, hardly shaky at all. She'd practised this calm, collected tone many a time before.

"A graceful name."

"I suppose." She could feel how unsteady she felt, could tell it was only a matter of time before she fell apart, before the shakiness she felt started to show, before her eyes widened and the urge to run grew too strong to ignore, to deny, pointless or no.

"So, ah, I'm Lyle." He smiled a little, a little more.

"Is that French?" Emily asked, stalling for time. It felt like the exactly wrong thing to do.

"Could be," he offered, with another smile and a toss of the head, like maybe he didn't know himself, but Emily knew Lyle wasn't even his real name, just as Hannah wasn't her real name, wasn't even her current alias. She'd been going by Megan, pronounced _Maygan_, though she found most people called her _Megan_ anyhow.

He asked her something in French, but she merely shook her head. No, she didn't speak French, that wasn't why she had asked. She assumed that was what he'd asked, and he didn't frown, so she guessed she'd assumed right.

"Going home?" he asked, changing the topic.

An icy chill stole over her and she resisted from shivering and replying, Hell, no, psycho! The Centre had never been her home, she'd never set foot in the place, and it had never been Jarod's home either. "That's right," she replied, to his question.

"Nice. I like that."

"You're not going home?" she ventured.

"Working late."

"That sucks."

He sighed. "Ah, it's something to do. We all get through life in our own way. Your stop?"

She looked around instinctively, half afraid she was indeed about to miss her stop, when it hit her that she couldn't get off, she couldn't lead Lyle back to her hideout. She shook her head, casual as. "No."

"Good. 'Cause I was just about to ask you out for a drink. After work." He glanced at his watch, smiled, shrugged. "Battery picked a fine time to die."

Emily pointed to the clock on the wall and he glanced that way for a long moment, then back to her face. The relief was gone as soon as it had come, no comfort at all. No time to make plans. She didn't like these types of games, and she wasn't any good at them, clearly. If she'd been any good, he wouldn't have very nearly succeeded in killing her last time they'd met. She was lucky to have lived, and they both knew it.

"Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa" had began playing and Lyle sung along. Meeting Emily's eyes once more, he stopped. "What do you say, Hannah?"

"What?" she asked.

"Drinks, after work? Or are you... involved with someone?"

"Mmm. Yeah, sorry. I am."

He smiled deviously. "Maybe we could still be friends?"

She shook her head.

He nodded, smiling. "Fair enough."

She offered a smile back, looked away. She decided she'd get off at the next stop. Yeah, she'd probably have to run, but she was okay with that.

"Smooth. Smooth brush off," Lyle muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. "I'm good."

Emily pretended not to hear him. Perhaps that was one of his things now; he talked to himself? His phone started to ring and a wave of startled energy ran through her. She managed not to jump.

"This is Lyle," Lyle said, to his cell phone. "Working. Yeah, it's the radio. Swear. On one of those locomotive things. Trains? Do they now? I'll make a note of that right away. Where are you? You don't feel like saying? Wow! What have I done? Forget to send you chocolates, did I? You have my most sincere apologies – and I am very sorry. You're not working, are you? What? What?!" He laughed. "You should know _distrustful_ is my middle name. What? It is not! Ooo, it could be. All right, have fun. Bye... bye." He sighed.

Emily took her eyes from her phone, which she'd been pretending to read a text message on, and caught Lyle's eyes. She was really fed up with his silly game now.

"What's your number?" he asked suddenly, as if she hadn't earlier told him they wouldn't be making friends. He didn't smile; he appeared perfectly serious.

"Did you forget I have a boyfriend already?" she asked. He was acting really weird and she didn't like it. She felt like smacking him over the face, snapping him back to his senses. Why was he doing this to her?

"I thought for sure your stop would be coming up soon, but here you are." He laughed, oddly. "You're still here. You maybe like me a little, eh?"

Emily couldn't help pulling a face. He was crazy intent on chasing her, wasn't he? She hoped he wasn't planning on killing her before he realised he could use her as bait for Jarod, hoped he hadn't gone off his meds.

He picked up his briefcase, put the file he'd been reading earlier away, took out a bag of cookies and offered her one. "My dream girl made them." He grinned. "She hates me. I'm sure they're... not entirely inedible."

She scowled at him. "You eat it. I don't wanna die."

He broke the cookie in half. It was in the shape of a star. He offered the bigger half to Emily.

"You're crazy," she told him, but took the cookie anyway. It did look home-made; it was kinda dodgy-looking. Maybe he'd made it himself, maybe it was drugged. When she looked up from inspecting the cookie, she noticed that he'd eaten his half already and was eating another.

He flashed her a smile. "They're nice." He laughed, pointed. "This is my stop." He offered her the bag of cookies.

She made a real dirty face, and he stashed the cookies back in his briefcase and stood up. Patted her nose on his way to the door.

"You're so cute."

She glared after him. "You're so crazy." She waited, watched him leave. She didn't feel any better, to see the back of him. It was only when she was thinking through her next move that it occurred to her that he may have an accomplice. Her blood turned icy.

She got off at the next stop, let her shoulders drop, slumping a bit. She was so tired.

"Heya, pretty! Care for a coffee, Hannah?"

Emily moaned, her glare exhausted, weak. "Would you stop following me?"

"They were following you first, love," he replied, stepping away from the convenient pillar he'd been hiding behind.

"Wh-" She made to turn, eyes wide, but he reached over and touched her arm gently, stopping her. A surge of frustrated violence galloped through her. She pushed it down.

She lowered her voice, speaking with a forced calm. "How do you know they're following me? Who are they?"

"Not friends."

She graced him with a frown that told him she thought him something pathetic.

"You're working on a story?"

She rolled her eyes dirtily. "What do you think, Lyle?"

"Let it go."

"No. No, I don't take my orders from you, thank you," she told him, surprised at the clearness of the disgust and anger in her voice.

"Don't say _no_, Hannah."

"Get lost!"

He sighed, shrugged. "Sure. Fine." He shook his head. "Do what you want, Hann." He headed off in the direction of the exit.

Emily stood glued the spot of a couple of moments, trying to decide what to do. Glancing around her with steadily growing unease, she noted a group of teenage girls standing by a vending machine, giggling and chatting in an assortment of short shorts and slinky skirts and strappy high-heeled shoes. The two young men standing nearby didn't even notice they were there, didn't spare a single glance their way. Emily picked up her feet and hurried after Lyle. "I didn't see anyone dangerous," she told him distastefully, "just some kids. You're nothing but paranoid."

He didn't look at her, didn't talk to her.

She scowled. "What, and you're my saviour all of a sudden?"

"Nope. Didn't ask you to follow me. Don't much care for your 'some kids'. Don't think we should be friends, matter of fact. Would upset my dream girl. So, like, let's not hang out." He turned to catch her eyes. "Get lost, will you?"

"Tell me who they are first."

He threw her words back at her, nonchalant, uncaring. "They're just some kids. They're not dangerous, I'm sure."

"Tell me who they are," she repeated.

"Yeah, sure." He gave her a glare, hostile but nothing as frosty as he'd been hoping, Emily guessed. The frosty glares were Parker's speciality, not his. "I have nothin' further to say to you," he told her darkly.

She met his glare with one of her own. "You're angry. You're angry they showed up and spoiled your fun. You thought you could play with me some, before hauling me off to be bait for my brother, but there they were, watching, and they wouldn't like that, I don't think. Maybe I'm better off with them?" she suggested.

He shrugged, grinning darkly. "Up to you, sunbeam. You rather hang out with your boys, what you waiting for? Think they'd like that."

Emily glanced back the way she'd come, but there was no one there. "You're paranoid," she hissed, a cold wind slamming into her as they stepped out onto the murky, darkened street. "The story I'm working on is not dangerous. I'm researching an adolescent clinic. They do good work." Unlike the company he worked for, she thought furiously.

"Yeah, sure. You're the expert. You'd know." He stopped, turned to face her, his expression set, hard. "Stop following me. It's starting to get creepy now."

She narrowed her eyes, glaring at him through the brusque, wintry breeze. "What are you saying? Are you saying they're doing something to harm the children under their care?"

"You should ask Fernanda Perez's parents that, Hannah," he replied simply. He turned his back on her and went on walking.

"What are you talking about? Nanny Perez is a Missing Person. She ran away from home. It happens. Teenagers run away."

His voice had a sorry air of moroseness about it that made her angry. "Of course, Hannah," he replied, taking a right at the end of the street.

Emily followed him, trudging past a diner with darkened windows. It was too bad, too; she could have done with a coffee and Lyle had offered to pay, after all.

Cutting across a dirty parking lot down along the street, he stopped under a flickering lamp. Emily wasn't sure why he'd stopped, but looked around them, peering into the gloom outside the circle of light from the lamp. "Evening, boys," Lyle said, and that was when Emily noticed the two boys from the subway station. They weren't smiling. "You got something you wanna say to us all?" Lyle asked them.

The pair stepped closer to the light and Emily noticed, absurdly, that their teeth were too sharp. All of their teeth were too sharp. Much too sharp, and their fingernails appeared more like claws, sharp, black claws. For one wild moment, she thought she must be hallucinating, tripping or something like that, but she hadn't eaten the half cookie Lyle had given her, had stowed it in her pocket instead. There was no way she could think of that this was a hallucination, yet that was what she desperately wanted it to be.

"We don't need to say anything," the tallest of the pair told them with a grin, in a low, gravelly voice. "Your mangled corpses will say everything that needs saying."

"You're here for the lady, I assume," Lyle said, and the tall boy laughed.

"You might say that, Daddy," he mocked. Clearly, he wasn't fussed about the prospect of adding another corpse to his tally. It was no trouble, really.

"The lady is mine," he told the boys calmly, reasonably. "Back off."

The boys laughed, sharp teeth menacing in the flickering lamp light. They stepped closer.

"Take a walk, boys," Lyle told them. "This is not your nice party. The lady's with me. I mean it."

"No, no." The tall boy shook his head, his grin spreading wider. "See, Daddy, I don't think you get me. You got nothin'. Lady's ours, she isn't yours. You got nothin', Daddy. Be nice, give us the lady nice and easy and we'll do you a favour – we'll let you keep your life. Maybe."

Lyle picked up Emily's hand, gave it a squeeze. "Don't you worry, Hannah. Everything will be all right. These boys don't know what they're saying, I'm afraid they're a little confused. It is, unfortunately, a trend amongst the young these days."

The second boy, the short one, snickered. "You're real funny!" he laughed.

"I'm sure," Lyle replied.

The tall boy laughed, so very pleased with himself. "Daddy, you don't know shit about us!"

Lyle frowned, letting go of Emily's hand. "You really want to take me on, little one?"

" 'Little one'?!" The laughter died in the tall boy's murky red eyes and he growled, a low, animal noise.

Lyle met his eyes unblinkingly, steadily. Whilst Emily was having trouble understanding how the boy's eyes could be such a shade of red – unless he was wearing contacts – Lyle didn't seem to have a problem with it, he was just staring at the glaring boy, looking right into his eyes, as if he thought perhaps he could hypnotise him that way, but Emily didn't think so. Whatever was wrong with this boy and his friend, she had a feeling he was very serious about wanting to hurt her, and now he wanted to hurt Lyle too.

The boy growled angrily. "He's a fuckin' Perceptive!" he spat. "He's trying to influence us. Thinks we'll be persuaded not to rip him to shreds and feast on his lady's entrails to the sweet music of her beautiful screams."

Feeling sick, Emily tried to catch Lyle's eye, but he wasn't taking his eyes from the tallest boy. He had to have a gun on him; he could... scare them off, she thought. Maybe.

The boy snickered, a sick gleam in his eye. "You one o' them Empaths, Daddy? You want me to paint you a picture what we gonna do t'your lady here, a sweet li'l spoiler. We know you Empaths love that shit."

The other boy sniggered along with him friend.

"No, son," Lyle said, "but I think I'm going to have to send you boys to your room. Give you a little time to reflect on your reprehensible conduct."

The short boy pulled a dirty face, glaring at Lyle and glancing over Emily filthily as though she was diseased for keeping such company. "Waste the Empath scum, Jimmy! He's putting me off my food."

Jimmy nodded. "I hear what you're saying, brother. There's a funny taste in the back of my mouth. You Empath scum turn my stomach. Nobody likes you. Not nobody! You're scum! Send me to my room!" He laughed raucously. "What a joke, Daddy! We gonna chow on your lady whilst you watch. You're gonna love it, guaranteed."

Lyle crossed his arms. "You sure like to talk, Jimmy. You talk and talk and _talk_. You've never killed anyone before, I can sense that. Don't be an idiot. You know the Triumvirate's stance on needless crime and reckless stupidity. The lady is no threat to you. Neither of us are any threat to you."

"True," Jimmy agreed. "That's very true, Empath scum. The lady couldn't hurt us if she Twittered her human compatriots we was monsters, just a droolin' and hot for her tasty meat."

"The lady finds you frankly vulgar," Emily told Jimmy with complete disgust.

"Vulgar?" the boy laughed. "That's adorable, dinner. Adorable."

Emily glanced seriously at Lyle. "Shoot them!" she hissed.

"Hannah?"

She scowled. "What?" She looked into his eyes, more than irritated. She didn't want to die at the hands of a couple of psycho teenage boys who believed themselves to be monsters, monsters who ate humans. It was sick. It was beyond sick.

He turned to her properly, put the boys out of his mind completely, it seemed. He touched her face. "I won't give you up." He smiled, for added crazy effect. "I will never give you up, starlight."

Emily nodded. "Why don't you shoot them, moron?" she hissed. "Drop the cutesy pet names and the creepy shit and shoot them – before they eat us!" She nodded hysterically, eyes widening. "Yes, this is serious!"

He leaned closer and she thought he was about to tell her to get it together, but then he kissed her, and everything went black.

She thought the lamp must have made good on its promise to fail, at long last, it was so very cold and so, so dark, and she felt so weak, so tired, but then her eyes fluttered open and the brightness of the light stung so much it felt as if her eyes were on fire. She wasn't in the parking lot anymore. Her heartbeat kicked up and she struggled, realising she was lying on a bed in what looked like a motel room. Someone took hold of her arms and held her still, saying soothingly, "It's all right. You're safe now. Nobody wants to hurt you. It's all right. You're safe. You're safe."

She didn't know if she believed the voice, but she stopped struggling and just let herself be still, let herself breathe, try to get her heart rate under control.

Miss Parker, a scowl etched onto her hardened features, stepped away from the wall where she'd been standing observing matters, arms crossed. The tension could have been from lack of proper sleep, or merely that she wasn't in any way happy. "Why did you bring her out of the simulation? Did you find him?"

Lyle sighed, wincing. "She has no idea, Sis. She was working a story on some missing kid, that's it. She can't help us any more than she already has. I had to bring her round. Didn't want her getting hurt. When you mess with people's minds, you always do it within reason. They're fragile, easily damaged."

Parker growled, her voice low and menacing. She wasn't finding anything he was saying amusing in the least. "You said we wouldn't have to mess her up, that she'd tell us _exactly_ where he is, no fuss, no harm!" Her hands shook with barely contained anger.

"She'd have told us if she knew, Sis. Unfortunately for us, she doesn't know. The Pretender always initiates contact. It's smart. In a way."

Parker laughed darkly, and the sound came out as a harsh bark. She took out her gun and strode toward the bed, her eyes glinting brightly, angrily. "If I find out you know something you're not telling me, Lyle, I won't hesitate to dispose of you – or the girl!"

He stroked Emily's arm absently, glancing up at Parker with something like nonchalance. "She's a Recessive," he said calmly. "I doubt the company would be bothered, either way. You waste her, you don't waste her. Unless, of course, they plan on using her to lure the Pretender into a trap, or as, say, a mole. I know the Chairman and you are chummy, Sis, but... hmm... wouldn't want to take that chance without first consulting him, would you? Overstepping the mark, not good. Trust me, I know. Let's have a chat with the boss first, see what he says..."

Parker scowled, her eyes flashing. "I _am_ the boss, you imbecile! The Chairman put me in charge of Jarod's Retrieval Team."

"I don't deny that. You're the one in charge of this operation, Sis. Everyone knows that and accepts it. You're good at it, and you have a unique perspective. You were once... close, but you don't have anything to prove any more, Sis. Daddy's gone, and the company doesn't much care who you are, former chairman's daughter or not, so long as you can take orders. Relax, that's all I'm saying. I don't know, and you don't know, but I don't think the Chairman likes you too much, sees you as a threat to his position, I'd think. Could be, he's just waiting for you to slip up, do something stupid. Could be, he's fixing to replace you. But he's wrong, because you're not stupid. You're not stupid, and you understand that though he put you in charge out in the field, he wasn't giving you blanket authority on Jarod's friends and family members. The Pretender belongs to the company. We work for the company, represent their interests. We get paid; it's a job, after all, but it is not personal. No matter the history between Jarod and yourself, we can't afford to make it personal. Jarod may play those games, but Daddy's not around any more. Nobody's looking out for us now; we only have ourselves. So we're going to play it smart, okay."

He held her gaze, waiting for a sign she understood. "Yeah, okay, so I don't like the guy. Who is he, anyway? The Blue Cove branch has been in our family since the beginning; it's rightfully yours, I don't disagree with you in any way on that, but we're not going to win the company's favour by going down this road again. Maybe I am a little scared, feeling a little more ill at ease these days, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and trust you. In honesty, I have no other alternative, and I'm not saying all this to win your favour, or have one over you, I'm saying it because it's the truth. They don't trust me any more, if they ever did to begin with, and I'm starting to see it's time I got my act together and thought a little more deeply about things, and a little farther than merely my next flight of fancy.

"From where I'm standing, there are two things that would really be a shame: being poor, and being dead. I don't want to be either, so I'm going to co-operate. I go to my appointments with the Tower shrink, I take my crazy pills; I don't make passes at all the ladies at work. I understand my place, and I don't step outside of it. I'm learning respect, or at least the pretence of it. If I'm going to have to adhere to all these boring rules, which is what I've been doing, I'd rather not do it alone. We are family, so they've said. Blood. At least life would be a little less boring with you around. All I'm saying is, it would be in your best interests to co-operate also. I don't... care for you, but you make things less boring. You're kinda cool, and we both know you're not so bad on the eyes, either. Besides," he tilted his head, "Sydney and Broots, they care about you. I can tell. They're not hard to read. They'd be hurt, if anything happened to you, and I don't think you enjoy hurting other people nearly as much as one would first assume. It's a clever disguise, and in part, there's truth in it, but in other ways, it's just that, a disguise. You're only doing what any of us would, in your place. You're protecting yourself. Why not? Who else will do it for you, if not you? I understand. I'm a selfish, crazy idiot, but I understand, in many ways. The company isn't trustworthy; they've never cared for you, just what you could do for them. You are a clever woman, but don't let yourself down now. Hmm." He frowned. "Put the gun away?"

She put her gun away, glaring at him hatefully. "You're a lying son of a bitch and sicko, but I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for her. She could still have value to us."

"And there is also the fact that she's a human being," Lyle added, on a quieter note.

Parker flashed him and scowl and turned on her heel, shooting Sydney a _With me_ look and heading out the door.

Broots sighed heavily and peeled himself out of his chair at the table, where he'd been quietly working away on his laptop computer. "Is she all right? The... Tower psychiatrist, I mean?" He shook his head. "F-forget it."

"She has always been very professional with me," Lyle offered, with a sigh. He glanced at the door, which Parker had stormed out of earlier. "You wanna go get a coffee or something?"

Broots shrugged, giving the idea some thought. Finally, he nodded. "Do you want anything?"

Emily blinked open her eyes and stared at the wall, awash in warm, bright morning sunlight. For a moment, she wondered where she was, if she was still in the motel, then, just as quickly, she realised it had all been a dream, and sat up, thirsty. Strange dream.

She padded to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, admiring the peaceful country view outside her window. Soon after, the rest of the family appeared in the kitchen for breakfast and Emily put all thoughts of the odd dream out of her mind.

* * *

Broots took a seat at the table, idly listening to some song playing over the radio in the dining hall. He placed his mug down, turned the cup around so the handle was in its proper place. He looked up from his mug. "Weekend was that great, huh?"

Lyle didn't bother to smile, hardly looked at him at all. "Yeah, it was. The bomb."

Broots frowned. "Are you all right, man?"

"Sure."

Broots shrugged. "You sure about that?"

Lyle met his eyes, the expression on his face anything but happy. "All of these years, what has been the point? If I can never really connect with anyone, with anything else outside of myself, what's the point? Why am I still here – what am I going to learn? How am I going to change?"

Broots started to shake his head. "I don't understand what you're saying," he told Lyle. "You can't just give up and do it over. I... I don't believe you live more than one life; everything, your whole life is purposeful."

"My whole life can't make me a better person, Broots. _I_ can't. If we only live once, and there is some sort of judgement at the end, then I'm going to Hell."

A look of confusion crossed Broots's face. "Yeah, you think?" He frowned. "Isn't that a good thing, knowing that it would bother you?"

"No. It's just stupid. Why do I always have to be the same? Why can't I change?"

Broots ran a hand over the back of his neck. "Who told you you can't change?"

"It hasn't happened yet, Broots," Lyle replied morosely. "It's always the same. Nothing ever changes. I do what I do, ignore all the rest. Something changes, I don't let it phase me, because it's not how I want it to be. It doesn't _touch_ me; I always have a back-up plan. Nothing touches me, don't you get it? Why am I even here; why am I living? How is any of this benefiting my soul?"

"You believe in souls?" Broots asked.

"I'm a Possessor, Broots. Yeah, I believe in souls. I used to think it would happen when it happened, that I'd meet someone and want to change, and until then I'd just do what I wanted to do. I was such a fool, believing I could just do whatever and if it hurt when I looked back through someone else's eyes and realised I'd done it all wrong, it would all be okay because it was meant to hurt, it was meant to make me feel crap so I wouldn't forget, but my angel, the one who'd make me see I could be someone else, someone better – she never came and I'm still me. I'm still fucked up." He sighed heavily. "I'm tired, Broots. I don't want to wait any more. Always the same, always like this. Lying to myself, hurting everybody I touch; laying waste to my life, all my supposed potential. And for what? I'm tired. I'm tired of always being the only one. The only one I see, the only one I talk to, argue with, agree with. The only one who's hurting me; who could make it better, if I only wanted to. There are billions of people on this planet and not one, not one of them means a thing to me. I may as well be in Hell."

"You're talking to me."

"You're a good person," Lyle said, "but I'm not really talking to you. I just told you something, that's all."

"In my own way, I feel that same way," Broots told him. "I mean, my life isn't so bad – not as bad as it could be, I suppose – but it doesn't inspire me, either. It feels lacking, in some vital way, and you know, every time I feel like that, I always shake my head and push the feeling away, say to myself, 'It's not so bad. You have many good things'. What I mean is, I've been waiting too.

"When Debbie first came to live with me, I thought I'd found my meaning, my purpose. I was gonna be her dad and everything else would just... be better. If I just did this thing right, first. And Debbie has helped me, so much. I love her. But she's grown now, and we don't walk the same path any more. That ended long ago, and now I'm alone again. I still have my baby girl, of course, but it's not the same. She's not my reason any more. She'll be someone else's reason one day, and someone else will be her reason, but she can't be the only thing that makes me whole any more.

"We all feel alone, at one time or another. We all feel like maybe we could do with a little more hope. But I guess the way we get by is by... by still believing in the magic."

"I don't believe in magic," Lyle replied. "Not even as a kid."

"Well, you do have feelings. Everyone does," Broots said.

"They don't mean anything. Any time I listen to them, more bad shit happens. They're not right; they're just pointless."

"Could you be... misinterpreting them, maybe?"

Lyle laughed. "Doesn't matter. It doesn't feel better, when I learn better. What is the point, Broots? Why do I do this any more? Why bother? Because? I couldn't care less. I tried that, I've tried that. All this crap about faking it 'til you make it – never happened. Not for me. I have zero respect for that crap now. It just makes me angry."

"Maybe a change of pace would help? A new job?"

"Doing what, Broots?"

"You're very capable," Broots said.

Lyle laughed. "Just a facade, Broots. I am not a capable person; I'm a person who knows how to lie. It's the only thing I know how to do. I used to feel some sort of satisfaction when I got it right, when I fooled someone else, but I don't any more. None of that has any meaning for me any more."

Broots leaned closer, his tone urgent. "What else are you going to do?"

"I dunno. Die." He laughed. "Kyle always was smarter than me."

"But you don't want to go to Hell, remember," Broots said.

"I don't believe in Hell," Lyle told him. "Not on the other side, anyway." He shrugged, smiled a little. "We all have to die sometime," he said.

Broots shook his head. The conversation was really getting out of hand, getting to be too heavy. He wasn't a shrink; he didn't know how to cheer people up who saw no hope no more. He had no idea how to go about that kind of thing, but he knew he had to say something. "I know I probably don't mean anything to you, but you mean something to me. I don't want you to... d-die. You're _my friend_. You mightn't think anything would change if you weren't here, but you talk to me, you see me as a person. From where I'm standing you are my friend, Lyle, and I don't want you to go. I don't care if you really hate me, deep down, because I don't hate you. I don't mean this in a creepy way but I feel like my life is better with you in it. No, I guess you don't think you're a good person, but you help me believe I can be a better person." He frowned. "Miss Parker and Sydney don't do that for me. I like them, sure. I'd like for us all to be friends, but I know I don't register on their radar. Not really. When I'm with them, I'm alone. With you, I feel like I'm somebody... not just... a thing. I never was good at making friends, but I didn't even have to try with you. It just happened, and I think, underneath, you're not just some bad person. You help _me_." He frowned, shook his head again. "I love you, more than my own brother. You mean something, here. In this life. Please, try to see that. Try to let it mean something to you." He laughed, rubbing his face with a hand. "All you have to do is try, I wouldn't ask for anything else."

Lyle frowned. "You love me?"

It hurt Broots to think no one had ever told Lyle they loved him before, even as a kid, that his mother and father might never have said, 'I love you, baby. You can be anything you wanna be 'cause I believe in you'. He'd told Debbie plenty.

He nodded. "I love you."

Parker froze, standing a little ways off. Spying Broots and Lyle slacking off in the dining hall, she'd been about to yell at them – could be fun to press their buttons a bit – but now the smile slipped off her face. She'd always known Broots was strange – geeky and strange were Broots's middle names – but after a while, it hadn't even really bothered her any more. It was fun teasing him. Suddenly, she had the creepy, sinking feeling she'd never really known him. She didn't like it. She didn't like that Broots liked Lyle better than her, that he liked him at all. Lyle wasn't a good person, nobody was supposed to like him, and Broots was a good person. It was wrong that he liked Lyle, that he gave a damn about someone like that... and he'd just said...

They talked at work, but they weren't friends.

She stepped back. She was getting something wrong here, she was sure. She'd missed the beginning of the conversation; Broots didn't really love Lyle. She'd heard it wrong, messed up the context somehow.

She left her coffee on the table behind her and walked out, hating the prickling feeling at the back of her eyes. Yeah right, like she was seriously about to cry!

* * *

Walking out of a meeting with the chairman, Parker took the elevator down to Tech Space. Reaching Broots's desk, she saw that he'd gone off to break and sat down in his chair, turning the chair idly for a moment, looking around at the stuff cluttering up his cubicle. She started to stare at his computer screen, wondering, jokingly, if she'd be able to hack his password if she really tried, and that was when she spied the yellow sticky note tacked to his desk, next to the keyboard.

She scooted closer to the desk and picked up the sticky note, quickly reading the message. It said, _Thank you for being my friend._ She didn't have to wonder who it was from, she knew whose handwriting that was.

She scrunched the sticky note into a ball and turned in the chair, turfing it into the waste paper basket. She got up and walked away. Wherever Broots was hanging out, she'd find him, and when she did, he'd be sorry he'd ever gone off to break. The amount of breaks the guy took, it was no wonder they hadn't had a solid lead on Jarod in four months.

* * *

Parker cornered him in the men's room, a dark scowl plastered to her face, hard, blue eyes narrowed on his face. "You love that sick fuck?!" she spat, her disgust clear in her voice.

Broots shook his head, frowning at her. "He's not in a good way, Parker."

She laughed harshly. The sound hurt his ears, but not as much as the sinister gleam in her eyes. "You were lying to him?" she shot, amused as heck.

"No," Broots told her. "We're friends. He's my friend. I love him. I know you have trouble saying shit like that, but I don't. What's the point, Parker? You say it, you don't say it – they die and you're kicking yourself 'cause you never got up the courage to say you cared. You want me to tell you I care for you too, 'cause I do, Parker. I care for you, same as I do your brother. We're not friends, but I care for you. I wish you only the best, only the very best." He stepped away from the sink, frowned at her.

She backed up a bit, realising she couldn't intimidate him today. It wasn't so easy to look him in the eye after that.

"I love you, Parker," Broots told her. "I'd love you more if you'd only let me, but I know that's not what you want. I respect the people I love."

"You respect that creep?" Parker scowled, ignoring everything else he'd said. She didn't need to hear crap like that.

"I respect the part of him that respects me, yes."

"There is no such part, you idiot! You just made it up. You made it up because you want to believe it's real."

Broots rolled his eyes. "And I suppose I made up the part about you having a heart, too?"

Parker growled, her bottom lip wobbling with sheer anger. She didn't know how to deal with his shit today. She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room coldly, slamming the door on her way out.

Broots shook his head and called out after her, "You can't change my mind, Parker! I'll still love you anyway." Laughed. "Classy, Broots. Real classy."

* * *

Angelo frowned at the clearance card laying on the low table, beside a bottle of alcohol and some pills. He was a Pet, a "subject", he'd never had such a card, yet he knew it was a gift, though it wasn't for him. Not yet, but soon.

It was for Timmy, but Angelo wasn't Timmy. Timmy couldn't come to the door right now, but maybe, maybe he could be coaxed out of the house... Angelo started to back away. He didn't want Timmy to come back, he was okay the way he was, they were okay. They'd saved Davy. They'd done a good thing, one last good thing. They didn't need any more.

Lyle reached for his hand, grabbed hold of it and pulled him nearer. Angelo tried to back away, but it was no use. He couldn't Block the effects of the alcohol, couldn't counteract the strange way they affected him. He never could Block anything, and Lyle didn't mean for him to. He wanted to say, _This is silly. You can't waste your potential just to help me out; you're better than me_, but he didn't suppose Lyle wanted to hear.

Timmy had always deserved better, they both knew it, had known it for as long as they'd known each other, yet things were as they were. Now, things seemed to be different. Now, something could be done. Empaths were not just helpless, if they chose not to be. A long time ago, Timmy had known this too, but he'd been afraid. Afraid of what he might do, if he tried to stop them hurting him, so he'd resigned himself to his fate, just as Bobby had, in his own way.

Lyle winked at him. That was then, this was now.

* * *

Raines glanced around the room, expecting to see Angelo lurking about, but Angelo wasn't around. He walked over to the sofa, a frown working its way onto his face. He knelt down beside Lyle, lying on the floor, and checked his pulse. It was normal, but it was the only thing that was. He didn't go for his phone, didn't bother to alert Security. Angelo – or Timmy – would be long gone by now. The boy had never been a fool.

Raines sighed, resigned. "What have you done now, child?"

He stood up, picked up the bottle of pills, the vodka. He didn't know where Lyle had got the pills but he knew what they were, knew they weren't supposed to have them. If the Triumvirate knew they had them, they'd get into a lot of trouble.

Dusty Springfield's "Losing You" was playing over the stereo. He picked up the remote, switched the music off. Then he walked to the little office, pressed a few buttons on the telephone and spoke to someone down in Med Space for a moment or two. He put the phone down and left to get rid of the pills.

There was no hurry to report Angelo's disappearance.


End file.
